Consumer Electronic Show (CES) has kicked off in Las Vegas and the tech world seems to be buzzing with the newer smarter cars that will drive the industry forward. Nvidia is one such company that wants to make the smarter cars with high-end graphics on dashboards as well as sophisticated auto-pilot systems.
Nvidia chief executive Jen-Hsun Huang unveiled a new processor Tegra X1 chip that would provide enough computing horsepower for automobiles with displays built into mirrors, dashboard, navigation systems and passenger seating.
“The future car is going to have an enormous amount of computational ability,” Huang said. “We imagine the number of displays in your car will grow very rapidly.”
The 256-core Tegra X1 will come out in early 2015 and promises twice the performance of its predecessor, the Tegra K1, which is based on the previous-generation Kepler(TM) architecture and debuted at last year’s CES, Nvidia said.
An upcoming platform combining two of the X1 chips can process data collected from up to 12 high-definition cameras monitoring traffic, blind spots and other safety conditions in driver assistance systems.
Combined with next-generation software, the chips can help detect and read road signs, recognise pedestrians and detect braking vehicles, he said. “The Maxwell is unquestionably the most powerful GPU we’ve ever built,” the company said today. The X1 will also be far more energy efficient as its predecessor.
Nvidia has struggled to compete against larger chipmakers like Qualcomm in smartphones and tablets categories, and is now increasing its focus on using its Tegra mobile chips in cars and is already supplying car companies including Audi, BMW and Tesla.